Aïda Hôtel & Spa

The Aïda Hôtel & Spa is at Chemin du Béthania 1, in Crans-Montana, in Valais. The website presents it as a five-star boutique hotel with eighteen rooms and suites, facing south-facing terraces with a view over the valley and the alpine peaks, and the Booking page adds the Relais & Châteaux wording to the name. The score on Booking is 9.4 from eighty-five reviews, with a 9.3 for the location.

The age is stated by the house, and it repeats it. The website writes twice that it is "a 5-star boutique hotel in Crans-Montana reserved for guests ages 16 and older": once presenting the rooms and once presenting the wellness area, so the threshold of sixteen years applies to the whole hotel and not to the spa alone. Booking, read with and without children in the search, states that children are not allowed and publishes no figure: the two sources do not contradict each other, Booking is silent on the age and the website prevails. The only eighteen that appears on the page is the minimum age for checking in, which is a booking condition and not the rule of the house.

The wellness area

It is three hundred square metres, indoors, and the website lists them one by one: a heated indoor pool, a jacuzzi beside the fireplace, a sauna, a steam room, a relaxation area and a fitness centre, plus an outdoor pool. The Aïda Pool Club is the space with seating around the water. There are face and body treatments and massages chosen with the therapists, and an experience called Alpinglow Switzerland, which combines red and infrared light. The house also runs pilates retreats, in two formats, one of three days and two nights and one of five days and four nights.

The restaurant is called Le Partage and is signed by chef Franck Reynaud, with a kitchen of seasonal and local produce; there is also a bar, and breakfast, Booking writes, is chosen between à la carte, continental and vegetarian. The rooms have a flat-screen television with satellite channels, a minibar, a coffee machine and a kettle, a desk, a wardrobe, a safe, a private bathroom with a shower and free bath products; some have a balcony, others a mountain view. WiFi is free in all of them.

Two practical points. Arrival is from 15 to midnight and departure from 7 to 12; at check-in a photo ID and a credit card must be shown, and the time of arrival must be given in advance. Pets are allowed and a supplement may be charged. Booking also indicates room service, an airport shuttle and bicycle hire, and places the house in an area for skiing and cycling.